This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The Tasmanian tiger hunted more like a fox than its fearsome namesake, according to a new UniSC biomechanics study of predatory animals across the globe. The University of the Sunshine Coast-led research, published in BMC Ecology and Evolution, featured the thylacine in a comparison of 48 living and extinct predatory mammal species, from domestic dogs to African wildcats.
Commonly known as a Tasmanian tiger, the thylacine was a meat-eating marsupial that resembled a striped dog with a pouch and preyed on animals such as wallabies, possums and rodents. It became globally extinct in Tasmania in the 1930s. "We used archival footage and modern biomechanical analysis to examine how posture, movement and locomotion affected animals' hunting styles," said UniSC Associate Professor Christofer Clemente.
"We then grouped the animals into five clusters, ranging from social pursuit hunters to predators that grappled with or pounced on their prey. "It was fascinating to find the Tasmanian tiger was more likely an opportunistic pouncer, similar to a fox, jackal or coyote, rather than a grappler like a tiger or a wolf." Clemente and UniSC Ph.D. graduate Joshua Gaschk led the research with co-authors from UniSC, Yale University and the University of Tasmania. Gaschk, lead author on the paper, also created videos that show how anatomical markers were tracked throughout an animal's stride and used to compare gaits across species.
"What made this technique so powerful was that we were able to track animal movement in 4D, through both space and time," said Gaschk. "Before these methods, animal locomotion was rarely examined with respect to whole-body, continuous timing within gaits or in broad cross-species comparisons. "Our approach allows us to track how an individual's forelimbs, hind limbs, spine and head change shape and posture throughout natural locomotion.
"We then used this to draw broad-scale comparisons across carnivorous species worldwide, testing whether gait patterns reflect hunting strategy." Clemente, an expert in animal ecophysiology, said the methods used to gain insights into the behavior of extinct animals could also help inform conservation efforts to protect endangered species in the future. "The results showed that hunting ecology was reflected in the way predators moved, particularly during faster, high-performance gaits associated with acceleration, maneuvering and prey capture," he said. "Walking patterns were more strongly influenced by evolutionary history, but still retained information about hunting behavior.
"The Tassie tiger's walking movement was most consistently associated with opportunistic pouncers—predators that use short bursts of movement and take advantage of available prey—rather than highly specialized pursuit hunters or grapplers." Joshua L. Gaschk et al, Convergent carnivores or divergent dasyurids? Inferring predation and locomotor strategies of extant and extinct carnivorous marsupials from locomotor shape, BMC Ecology and Evolution (2026).
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